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Proposed new key: designation

Rationale

Often, an entity will have an official designation or classification. This is surveyable and useful information in itself, and thus deserves a place in OSM.

In addition, the tags can be parsed by specialist apps which value the "richness" of meaning - which is sometimes more than can be readily achieved with atomic OSM tags. To tag every way with the 200 individual facts set out in the legislation would lead to bloat and redundancy.

For example:

In most countries, the formal administrative highway classification does not coincide exactly with OSM's highway= tags. The designation= tag provides a mechanism to record this information.

Waterways in Europe are classed Class I-Class VIII by UNECE. Classification has implications for maintenance, funding and so on.

Rights of way in England and Wales may officially be "public footpath", "public bridleway", and so on. Each of these classifications has numerous legal details (e.g. bikes permitted on bridleways, but not bike racing) which are impractical to record one-by-one.

The designation= tag avoids the tag bloat that would result from inventing dedicated tags for each of these objects (e.g. 'formal_road_classification=', 'waterway_class=', 'ramsar=yes').

To clear up three misconceptions:

This is not a replacement or alternative for existing tagging (e.g. access or highway tags). This provides additional information over and above the existing tags, which is currently not recorded in OSM.

This is not specific to footpaths, cyclepaths, bridleways etc. It is for the official designation of any object.

This is not specific to England and Wales. This is a tag that can be used globally.

Applies to

Any object

Usage

This is a freeform tag. Any value may be used. Mappers (and those writing editor presets) should pay attention to local usage and try to accord with it. For example, in England and Wales, the values 'public_footpath', 'public_bridleway', 'byway_open_to_all_traffic' and 'restricted_byway' are already popular for path tagging, following local Right of Way legislation.

As with all tags in OSM, the rendering/routing client is expected to parse the tag in its geographical context.

About this vote

This tag is already in use (>22000 instances), especially in England and Wales. It will be added to Potlatch 2's presets in a forthcoming update.

The purpose of this page is to document its meaning and to formalise its "approval" for those who care about these things.

Voting

Please add your vote below

I approve this proposal. This is well-established, has no substantive objections, and seems to be the dominant way of tagging this.--RichardMann 17:05, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

I approve this proposal. This seems to be the natural way to accurately and concisely tag the legal status of public rights of way (and some closely related concepts). -- Rjw62 17:23, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

I approve this proposal. We need something to indicate the legal status of ways and this seems to be the best way --MarkS 18:21, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

I oppose this proposal. The tag might be valid in England, but the international/German section is not well thought out and would create a new level of redundancy and ambiguity. Proposal should be limited to the English use case only. --Nop 21:12, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

I oppose this proposal. The German section is a mere duplicate of existing tags, there is no suggested method to mark a right of way which might be missing at the moment (legal, easement), this proposal might be fine for England and Wales, but then I find the tag too generic. --Dieterdreist 00:53, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

I approve this proposal. to the England and Wales section of usage, which is already well used. Though not sure about all of the "second order values" that have been added, some of which are for rather unrelated things, and some are not E&W specific. And it seems there's not much need/demand for the Germany section. --Vclaw 01:42, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

I oppose this proposal. +1 to Dieterdreist. In Germany exists even bicycle/foot=official. --Skyper 15:09, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

I oppose this proposal. due to the already mentioned redundancy. --Scai 18:24, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

I what a waste of time this proposal. because the voting process is broken. --SK53 18:40, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

If asked to vote I'd say I "approve", of course. But there is no need to vote. This tag is already popular and that's all there is to it. Unfortunately the examples on this page have been badly chosen and do not explain the full worth of the tag globally, so it appears that the vote will be even more worthless than it usually is. --Richard 18:43, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

I would vote scrap the voting system every time. Why do people waste their time voting on something that has been in widespread use for well over a year? Chillly 18:49, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

I approve this proposal. --EdLoach 18:53, 2 March 2011 (UTC) (I agree with Richard. This vote is irrelevant as the tag is used so widely because it is needed.)

I approve this proposal. --Socks 00:08, 3 March 2011 (UTC) stupid voting on a wiki for something that's already in use.

I oppose this proposal. --Aighes 15:15, 4 March 2011 (UTC) if you need special access-values, define them...no new scheme is needed

I oppose this proposal. If the intention of the key is a tag for the administrative way classification, then this should be better named (e.g. wayclass=* and more clearly worked out. From how it is used until now, it looks like the reinvention of the access=* key. --Fabi2 15:24, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

I have comments but abstain from voting on this proposal. I agree we need a tag for this issue, but this doesn't seem to be the best way. --Errt 15:31, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

If asked to vote I'd say I "approve", of course. But there is no need to vote. This tag is already popular and that's all there is to it. (The access value official - which in itself is a mistake - is only sometimes coincident with some of the possible values for designation=*.) Alv 08:56, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

I oppose this proposal. Reason: there is no need for this proposal/vote. --Efred 18:24, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

I oppose this proposal. --_torsten_ The introduction is not necessary. highway=footway+foot=designated or others are sufficient and clear.

I oppose this proposal. While I accept the intention to tag official classifications, the proposal fails to clearly define a set of values (a "freeform tag" is not appropriate for official classifications) and the key's and popular values' names and descriptions are confusingly similar to existing tags. --Tordanik 20:16, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

I approve this proposal. I never normally vote (as it seems to me the voting system achieves little) but I feel compelled to approve to try to avoid a widely-used tag being voted down, and a subsequent silly argument about whether it is allowed to be documented in the wiki. --Davespod 10:36, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

I approve this proposal. As someone who normally hardly ever "votes" too. Honestly. It's in exceedingly widespread use, and addresses the physical/legal status distinction neatly and organically. We need this, we'll document it and continue to use it, and we don't care if you don't think it merits being included in the "official" wiki. --achadwick 23:10, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

The proposal was rejected with 26:15 votes and 2 neutral votes. The designation=* key is in wide use now nevertheless, but usage may differ from the definitions in this proposal. --Fkv (talk) 10:11, 5 March 2015 (UTC)